


Interrogation

by cerussita



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerussita/pseuds/cerussita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Post canon, spoilers for series. Will probably contain some implied Hark/Slaine along the way]<br/>Tasked by the UFE to collect information from the captured Vers soldiers left over from the war, especially about the fallen Slaine Troyard, Inaho is led to a man who had apparently been his closest, his most trusted, and most enigmatic soldier. Harklight seems to be determined in making Inaho's job as difficult as possible; but Inaho has never been good at backing down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nondescript and lacking in lighting, the interrogation room is a model similar to many that he's stepped into the past few weeks. They almost begin to blur together, and if not for the numbers beside the door, he'd forget which was which. If not for the files in his hand, he'd forget who was where.

Once Inaho is safely inside, the heavy door, layers of metal perhaps ten inches thick, is closed securely behind him. On the other side, the guard slides the metallic bolt in place with a thunk.

The walls are a warm gray that pretend to be off white, the pale lighting doing no favors to the ill maintained tiles of the floor.

At the lone table, in the center of the room, a man sits. Back straight and shoulders squared. His composure is the very image of discipline. A soldier, through and through. Calm and detached. Yet, Inaho feels it the second their eyes meet.

_He wants to kill me._

Angry glares of Versian soldiers are nothing new to him. Some of them spit insults, and some choose to simply brood at him.

But this...

Inaho eyes the large hands folded neatly in front of him, even as handcuffs hang from their wrists. They look strong, and labor worn.

….This is something more personal.

_He would kill me, if he could._

As he slowly crosses the room, the tension mounts with each click of his shoe heel. Time seems to lag. Their size difference become more noticeable; their eyes remain connected as sets the paper file down in front of him, and takes a seat on the opposite side of the table.

His feet just barely brush the floor. Inaho sits up straight, but the top of his head still hits below the other man's shoulders.

“Good morning.” He starts. “How are you?”

Dark eyes regard him from under a deep brow. Pure spite.

Inaho waits.

\------- 

Despite Earth's victory, there were a lot of questions left teeming beneath the surface of its blue waters. And a lot of loose ends.

Many of those, were the soldiers taken captive in the process of victory.

Those who had been released, were returned to Mars, or granted temporary residence on Earth. Under watch.

Messier threads included those who had been on the third, wild card side of Count Troyard. And even though Inaho was entirely tired of being involved, his proximity to the situation, and to the would-be conqueror, had apparently made him responsible for all things related to Slaine Saazbaum-Troyard.

And so one by one, day by day, he traverses the holding cells, slowly gleaning what little he can from those who had known him. It was slow, frustrating work. No one appeared to have any real insight to Slaine's machinations, beyond what he had promised them personally. And very little about the man himself.

So, then, who _does_ know? Who _would_ know?

When he asked that question, he received the same answer, if they bothered to answer at all. Some came after a thoughtful pause, some dropped the information readily.

 

_He had an aide with him all the time. I don't know his name._

 

_There was one knight who was always beside him. Either him, or the Princess Lemrina._

 

And this Princess Lemrina, was out of the question. Even if she were accessible, she would almost certainly not be cooperative.

 

_There was one soldier. Always beside him._

 

_Harklight was his name._

 

_Oh, Harklight. His right hand man, if there was one._

 

And so here he was.

 

It had taken four full days investigating. Of pouring through files and reports, making calls, sending inquiries. There were hundreds of captives, files full of names and no-names, John Does and Mary Janes. There had been a scramble of what to do with them post-war. Those who had not been immediately returned to Vers, had been dispersed over the globe, in varying conditions, in varying states of security. If they weren't dead.

And it was more than the search itself, which, alone, felt a gargantuan task. Those suspected of having defected to Slaine's side were a particularly sensitive issue; they were caught in a diplomatic net. More often than not, Vers disowned them entirely, needing to make space between their empire and the rebels for the sake of renewed peace relations.

They would had been considered revolutionaries if they had won, Inaho muses. Heroes.

Irony aside, it meant they were often left at the mercy of Earth's hands, and the issue now was, exactly how much actual mercy they deserved.

The questions were on the table, in the headlines. What kind of image would Earth decide upon?

Set an example? A veiled threat, a promise, to Vers, and execute them all?

Spare them, leave them in limbo? Life sentences of wasted resources and bureaucratic knots?

Play the benevolent victor, and release them instead? A subtle glance from down a proudly lifted chin, _we're not afraid of anyone._

….Morals aside.

Inaho had a job.

These questions weren't his to answer.

He scanned the databases, read the reports, and finally, against many odds, found the file of an unnamed soldier from Vers who had, under much effort, been forcibly captured at around the right time and the right place.

The file read that he had been badly injured, remained uncooperative throughout recuperation, and was now being held indefinitely at a holding center in Russia. Not very far from where they had taken their refuge in the early days, actually.

And so Inaho made one last call, and had the soldier in question transferred to their own facilities in Japan, where the interrogations he was now in charge of were taking place.

There were not many things that many people would have refused Inaho, of all people. And the officials there were glad to have one less person to fuss over. So much the better if he was one of the complicated cases. The words _“an associate of Slaine Troyard's_ ” made them all too eager to be rid of him.

–--

 

So here he found himself, staring down a man who is trying, very hard, to keep his face from twisting into a hateful grimace at the sight of him.

And he wasn't doing it very well.

“Do you know why I am here?” Inaho tugs his shirt sleeves further over his hands for the chill of the room.

Nothing.

“Do you know why _you_ are here?” He tries folding his hands similarly to his charge, because he's heard that mirroring someone's gestures made them implicitly more interested in you.

Those eyes dart right to Inaho's hands, and maybe he imagined it, but he hears the slightest hint of a scoff, deep in his throat.

Had he really caught Inaho's intentions?

“...You're sharp.” He notes.

Only to be met with a brick wall of a stare.

Inaho kicks his feet a little, and instead lifts the file to re examine it more thoroughly.

“So. Harklight.”

He gives a pause, just to see if maybe, he would tell him, _you've got the wrong person._ Or, _how did you discover my name?_

Nothing.

“... _Is_ Harklight your name?” He asks idly, flipping through the papers.

The notes were brief. A medical report. A set of photos of when he had been brought into custody, received his medical treatment. The picture that was, effectively, his mugshot.

No answer, as expected.

Inaho waits for something. Anything. It's been five minutes, and he hasn't heard the man's voice once.

“You would tell me if I had the wrong person, right?” He blinks, raises his eyes to the sturdy...twenty-something?....across from him.

“...Or maybe you wouldn't.”

He glances down at the file again, taking more time with each article. He does, after all, apparently have the leisure of time. 

“Alright.” He concedes, “You definitely wouldn't.”

Looking closer, he pays more attention this time. He can see more details in the photos. The blood splatters upon hospital bed sheets, the burn marks, stained cotton bandages. Bruises, from when he had to be forcibly restrained by faceless UFE uniforms.

But they were all irrefutably of the same man sitting before him, unnamed in the file. He had simply been given a code number for identification purposes.

6492-31.

Inaho surmises now that was because, probably no one could get an answer out of him. Not even his name. Although, it felt almost voyeuristic to secretly take these glimpses of his not-very-distant past.

“Do you know why I am here?” Inaho repeats the question slowly, softly, nonchalantly leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Do you know why you are here?”

A small twitch of the lip. A deepening of his frown. Inaho wonders what they mean.

“You were named.” Inaho tells him. Watching, waiting, for anything. Anything at all. “I was put in charge of investigating the people perceived to be close to Slaine Troyard. You repeatedly came up.”

He meets Harklight's eyes with his one good one, adjusts the strap of his eye patch where it's begun to slide up his hair.

“Your comrades had no problem telling me what they knew of you.” Inaho says the words carefully. “They told me you were the person most often seen with Slaine Troyard. So I had to find you.”

It had to be the mysterious Harklight, Inaho decides. It only made sense, for this person to look at him with such resentment. He would confirm later with another prisoner if it were him or not to be sure, but.

Despite the careful blankness of his face, the locked muscles of his hands were enough to tell Inaho that if it were up to them, he'd be in another puddle of his own blood.

And his eyes.

They're dark. Very dark. Blue or black. Hard at the edges and framed by the tension of his brow.

He knew precisely who Inaho was. What he had done, and what that meant.

“They did, unfortunately,” He adds, “Know very little of you.”

The silence stretches thinner and thinner, more pronounced with every second Inaho blinks back at Harklight's immobile stare.

“...So,” He tries to sound upbeat, raising the pitch of his voice just slightly. It sounds false, even to him. Fake as the smile he tries to curve his mouth into. “I want to know a little more about you.”

Harklight lifts an eyebrow.

Very unimpressed, Inaho reads.

He drops his expression back into his natural deadpan.

“...I had to try.”

Harklight rolls his eyes. Looks away.

 

At least it was something.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Let me properly introduce myself.” He politely dips his head, lowers his eyes. “My name is Inaho Kaizuka. I'll be speaking with you today.”

Tension, as he's discovered, always hangs around during these interrogations. Like a heavy canopy, it shadows, encloses, and he's left to face whatever his subject has to hurl at him.

More often than not, it's anger, and as far as that's concerned, the man sitting opposite him holds plenty.

That wasn't new. Anger, he could manage.

_This_ , is a little different.

For all his size, Harklight has very little presence; it's all concentrated, like a riptide beneath a gentle wave. As much as Inaho can be assured his safety will be closely monitored, there is no mistaking the intensity of everything behind that stare.

_He wants to kill me._

“You were stationed at the moon base, is that correct? What was your official rank?”

But Harklight continues to simply glower at him. For a moment, Inaho wonders if maybe he _couldn't_ talk, and considers flipping through the medical report one more time in case he missed an injury that would impair speaking.

...No, he would have remembered something like that.

He wonders if there's any alternate languages or dialects on Vers that he had _somehow_ remained unaware of, and maybe Harklight didn't understand him.

As implausible as it was, he rules that out soon enough, anyway. The comprehension is clear on Harklight's face. No confusion, no puzzlement. Just seething anger from a man rightfully suspicious, if not completely aware, of the hidden camera watching every single one of them. So in a way, there's little mystery as to why he says nothing, shows nothing, _besides_ contempt.

Yet...

“...You won't answer anything at all?”

Without wavering, Harklight answers, “I was told I had the right to silence. Is that not true?”

Inaho stares. He can't help it.

Harklight's voice is a little deeper than Inaho imagined. Steady and smooth, like a stone polished long under a river current. Formal.

“No. It's true.” Inaho confirms.

One of Harklight's eyebrows quirk, as if to say, _well, then._

And so the remaining minutes of their session pass, until Inaho finally checks his watch. Sees the time.

Inaho rises, and nods his head in acknowledgment.

“I have to go now.”

Harklight's stare remains as intense as the moment he'd stepped into the cell.

“It was nice meeting you. I'll be back again soon.” He promises, and knocks on the door to be let out.

Until the very instant the door closes behind him, he feels eyes on his back. Faintly, he imagines the feeling of a knife being dug into it.

_He wants to kill me._

 

–

 

He doesn't leave right away. Rather, he makes his way to the control room, where the prison director chews on his thumb as he stares intently at the very monitor Inaho has come to examine.

“A tough one.” He says gruffly, more to himself.

Yuki crosses her arms and brings her focus from the monitors to the approaching Inaho.

“What do you think?” He asks her first.

She's better at reading people than he is, and he wants her opinion before he can devise a strategy. He was going to need a good one.

She sighs. “Very proud. Very stubborn. He's going to be as difficult as he can, for the hell of it.”

He looks again at the photos in the file.

Harklight's hair is much shorter. He's clean shaven. Although torn and bloodied, he'd donned the gray uniform of what he understands to be a higher ranking soldier.

“...Get him a haircut.” He suggests, remembering the grown out fringes that almost fell into Harklight's eyes, collected at the nape of his neck.

“Let him shave regularly.” Inaho adds, noting the scruff beginning to shadow his face. “Make him comfortable.”

“It won't be that simple.” The director shakes his graying head, disbelieving.

“No.” Inaho folds the file shut. “But it'll be a start.”

Yuki shrugs indifferently, falling beside Inaho as they start heading for the exit.

“It wouldn't hurt.” She says, heels clicking, “At least he'll be marginally easier to look at.”

“That's not how you should be looking at him while I question him.”

“Oh, don't you even _start_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments! I know this is a short chapter, but plenty more coming.


	3. Chapter 3

When Inaho visits the next week, he sees they've listened to his advice.

 

With his hair neatly trimmed, and his face freshly shaven, Harklight looks younger. And, even more like a soldier than before.

 

“Good morning. How are you?”

 

Harklight's stare tells him that he will be no less obstinate than the first meeting.

 

_He wants to kill me._

 

Inaho tries to ignore it, as he sits back in his seat. Metallic creaks escape the cheap folding chair, and disturb the silence. About as much as the slide of papers in the folder he peers over for the hundredth time, trying to avoid making contact with the presence before him.

 

Except he feels it anyway, feels it again, even as he crosses his leg, reads over his notes. As if Inaho were standing at the edge of an ocean, the waves gentle at his ankles, yet nothing but danger below the surface.

 

_He wants to kill me._

 

Inaho has never wielded strong social skills, and a good part of him doesn't understand why he is there in the first place. He can gather, and assess, information. He can analyze things on an objective level. Making friends with a bitter Versian soldier who would be all too happy to slam his head through the table, wasn't located within his skill set. Or, lack thereof.

 

But he had a job to do, and he would do it the best he could.

 

So he lifts his eyes, meeting Harklight's. There's a spark of apprehension in the air, and he can't tell which one of them it came from.

 

“You were a soldier for a long time.” Inaho calmly asserts. Harklight's discipline, his measured demeanor, could have only been carefully and deliberately constructed. Naturalized from long years of habit, he probably knew no other way.

 

So Yuki had thought. Inaho was inclined to agree.

 

He waits for a, _yes_ , or _no._ In vain, of course, because Harklight's eyes flicker, unimpressed, at Inaho, but as usual he says nothing.

 

They continue to watch each other warily from across the table, until Inaho prompts again, “You were, weren't you?”

 

“Was I?” Harklight's voice stays low and terse. “What's a 'long time' to someone like you?”

 

_Someone like you._

 

He can't resist asking.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

Harklight looks at him, as though it were a chore to answer, as if it were clear.

 

Inaho waits again.

 

“Someone who isn't sitting in prison.” Harklight answers surprisingly cordially, if a little tersely.

 

“Ah.”

 

Inaho presses his thumb to the top of his pen.

 

_Click, click, click._

 

The silence hangs while the light clicks and whines above them, louder than last time.

 

“You still haven't told me. How long were you a soldier?” Inaho asks.

 

Irritated, Harklight replies with, “How long were _you?"_

 

There's no harm in answering.

 

“Since the start of the war. And am still one now.”

 

The tension increases in Harklight's face, his brow pulling just a little more as he drops the conversation, opting again for silence and stares.

 

_He wants to kill me._

 

“You should stop thinking of yourself so much as a soldier, still.” Inaho offers, twirling the pen between his fingers. “The war is over. You are no longer in the service of Vers.”

 

There's a slight pull at Harklight's lip, and his jaw clenches. Probably biting it, Inaho assumes while he watches, then turns his eyes up to the ones of his charge, darkened with fury.

 

“...You look like you have something to say.”

 

The two hands on the table, larger than his, probably stronger than his, clench even tighter.

 

“I have _nothing._ To say to you.”

 

_He wants to kill me._

 

“But, you know,” Inaho says aloud, as he taps his pen on the table top. “The UFE permits the use of enhanced interrogation tactics. If you still want to be stubborn. You're better off with me.”

 

Harklight looks at him. There's an awkward, dead beat between them.

 

This time, he definitely hears it.

 

Harklight _snorts_ at him. Clearly amused.

 

Inaho isn't sure whether he's called his bluff, or is simply that brave.

 

 

–

 

Two more sessions pass, with Harklight giving little more than a monosyllabic scoff, or silence, each time.

 

_–_

 

“You,” Yuki sighs, “Are _wasting_ your time.”

 

“I can do it.” He says. “I just _need_ time.”

 

His sister looks skeptical, as she crosses her ankles beneath the table, and pulls up a bite of rice from bowl to mouth.

 

“If you say so...” Her tone still sounds thoughtful around her chewing. “But I think you should really just hand the assignment to someone else and work on something more worthwhile. Like going back to school.”

 

“What do I do to open him up?”

 

Having had her suggestion ignored, Yuki's brow crinkles. She huffs, pointedly taking her time with another bite, chewing, swallowing, while Inaho waits. The clarity of her eyes indicate she's got an answer for him, but he knows her irritation with him won't last as long as she pretends it will.

 

“If you press him, he'll dig his heels in.” Yuki finally tells him, “That's how stubbornness works.”

 

_Very proud. Very stubborn._

 

Those had been Yuki's first impressions of him.

 

“And so what do you suggest I do?”

 

“Don't push. _Pull._ ”

 

“... _Pull._ ” Inaho repeats quietly, mulling it over his dinner bowl. “How do I do that?”

 

Yuki runs a hand through her bangs, sweeping them out of her face. With a sigh, she laments,“They really should have gotten someone to _train_ you on how to do this kind of thing, if they really insisted you do it at all.”

 

“Yuki,” Inaho reminds her, “Explain it to me.”

 

She settles her face in her palm, looking across the table at him. “He's made it a point to let you know he'll be as difficult as possible.”

 

“Clearly so.”

 

“ _So,_ ” Yuki sits back up, and explains, “Rather than simply trying to wear him down or rail him with questions, you need to engage him. Talk with him, not at him. Sooner or later, he'll respond to _something._ ”

 

“That's going to be more difficult than it sounds.”

 

Yuki's eyes take on a teasing sparkle, matched by her smile. “Are you saying you can't do it?”

 

“I did not say that,” Inaho defends carefully. “I said it would be difficult.”

 

“Rightly so.” Yuki affirms.

 

“But it will work?”

 

“It could. _Eventually._ ” She helps herself to another spoonful of rice as she concludes, “After all. He's only human.”

 

–

 

Dark spots freckle the cobalt of Inaho's blazer. Harklight notices as soon as he enters.

 

Inaho's wiping off his hands on the sides of his pants, when he catches the subtle examination.

 

“It's raining outside.”

 

Harklight's eyes snap to his face, and don't divert as Inaho lowers himself to take his usual spot.

 

“Rather heavily.” He adds. “I only had to walk from the vehicle to the entrance, and I got wet.”

 

For another moment, drawn and tense, Harklight stares, Inaho meeting the expressionless mask with one of his own. Then he turns his face away, ignoring him altogether.

 

“Have you seen rain?” Inaho pauses. “Do you know what it is?...When the water evaporates into the atmosphere, it condenses into-”

 

“I _know_ ,” Harklight interrupts, with his cold steel of a voice. “What rain is.”

 

“But have you seen it?” Inaho asks again. “It's actually, I guess, a really strange phenomenon. Us here, we grow up with it, don't think very much about it. But I bet it seems really bizarre. Objectively. Water falling from the sky.”

 

A few more seconds of silence, and Inaho continues.

 

“Does your cell have a window? Maybe you _have_ seen it then.”

 

“What do I care about rain?” Harklight asks. Back to being cool, distant.

 

“Maybe you don't.” Inaho rolls his pen with his finger along the table top. “It probably doesn't seem very important to you.”

 

They're too far beneath the roof, for the drops to patter at the ceiling, and there are no windows in the interrogation room.

 

_Don't push. Pull._

 

Inaho abruptly disrupts the awkward silence.

 

“Do you want to go see it?”

 

The suspicion in Harklight's narrowed eyes is razor sharp. Inaho meets it unflinchingly.

 

“What do you think I'm going to do?” Inaho raises himself from his seat, retaining eye contact. He can't push Harklight back, but he can hold his ground.

 

“I couldn't guess.” Harklight's tone has returned to being even, and frustratingly unreadable.

 

“I mean it. Let's go to the yard.” Inaho offers.

 

“I am fine here.”

 

Harklight hasn't moved. Will _not_ move. They're left blinking at each other, at a standstill.

 

...Inaho doesn't know how to make a grown man move voluntarily.

 

“You probably,” Inaho tries, “Don't get a lot of fresh air. Aren't allowed outside much. I can take you, if you want.”

 

“I do not.”

 

“How come?”

 

No answer is offered.

 

“Despite the rain, it's very pleasant outside.”

 

“If you want me to go so badly,” Harklight suggests, smoothly as a slide of whiskey, “Have the guards drag me there.”

 

“Seems like a lot of commotion to cause over a walk outside.”

 

“It does.” Harklight agrees pleasantly.

 

His tone has given way again, just a little. His mouth perks into a smile that doesn't match his eyes.

 

“Take your seat.”

 

He's pushing it. And Harklight knows it, folding his hands civilly on the table in front of him. Watching, waiting for any sign of Inaho's posture tensing, any glimmer of irritation.

 

Inaho will not allow himself so much as a twinge, beneath his penetrating stare.

 

Ordering the guards to rip him from his seat, haul him outside, was within Inaho's power. But it wouldn't win him any leeway with Harklight, who was, he was sure, testing Inaho. Prodding his patience with a fine needle, so he could see how bad his temper was, trying to find the way straight to his nerve.

 

Should Inaho give up and leave the interrogation room, it would be a flat-out win for Harklight.

 

If he refused the invitation, stood the whole time, it'd tell Harklight he was immature, easily provoked, unable to match Harklight's play.

 

He refuses to be any of those things.

 

_Take your seat._

 

Disrespecting his authority. Acting like they were equals.

 

But they _weren't_ equals. Harklight is clever enough to realize their positions. He knows exactly what he's doing, and is doing it deliberately, to send one clear message to Inaho:

 

_You have no power over_ _**me.** _

 

And yet, with each second that floats by, his uncertainty is made more clear to Harklight's perceptiveness.

 

Slowly, he turns back towards the table.

 

“I will.”

 

The legs of his chair rake gently across the concrete of the floor as he draws it out from the table. Harklight watches with caution, tentatively pleased, until Inaho drags the chair to the other adjacent side of the table, and leisurely sits himself down.

 

Harklight's eyes narrow again, clearly displeased with Inaho's close proximity. Slowly, his hands clench tighter, into fists Inaho is direly hoping won't be connecting with his face in the next few seconds.

 

“Maybe I should sit here, from now on.” Inaho folds one leg over the other, and flips open his folder. “I can hear you better from here. So tell me, what were your most active duties while in Troyard's service?”

 

Under the table, Inaho's foot taps Harklight's leg, and he recoils.

 

“Sorry.” Inaho says, as Harklight seems to struggle over the implications of shifting further away.

 

Another glare finds him, hard as stone.

 

“Did you think I would tell you?”

 

“I was hoping.” Inaho answers plainly, and Harklight's eyes narrow even further.

 

“I will not.”

 

“Oh.” Inaho says simply, and taps the top of his pen to his lip in thought, eyes on Harklight's face. On the tension of his mouth, the muscles that tighten and so slightly crinkle his nose.

 

“'Oh'?” Harklight finally repeats back to him. “Is that all?”

 

“You said you won't.”

 

“I won't.”

 

“I believe you.”

 

The crease in Harklight's brow reappears, an eyebrow raising slightly as the sharpness of his gaze gives way to puzzlement. Unsure what exactly to make of Inaho's reply, of the silence, of the way Inaho continues to watch him thoughtfully until he then asks, tone verging on boredom,“Will you at least tell me how many direct subordinates Troyard had?”

 

“Why would I tell you that?” Harklight's snaps at him like a sliver of ice, the sharpness back.

 

“Why indeed.” Inaho sits his chin in his palm.

 

Never has Inaho truly being able to understand how people thought, how they felt. And he recognizes this as a shortcoming of his, now. His actions, his speech, his behavior, bewilder people, as often as theirs do to him.

 

But here he was, sitting squarely outside his realm of comfort, of facts and figures, with the task of coaxing out wartime secrets from a man with every reason to despise him.

 

_He wants to kill me._

 

Even if he didn't bring the overwhelming truth of who he was into the room, he doubted he could win Harklight over as a person. He had no such charisma. Instead, he'd have to resort to objective analysis, which he did know, and know well. To that end, every minuscule gesture Harklight makes, gives him bits of a peculiar, specific language he'll have to learn, should he want to succeed.

 

It was his job, and he would do the best he could.

 

_Don't push. Pull._

 

There was an in somewhere, and he'd have to find it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that took longer than i thought...things got busy...!


	4. Chapter 4

Gather information, he can do.

It's past 9pm, the lights off all for one room at the end of a the third floor hallway. Alone in a room abuzz with the hum of computers, Inaho has draped his blazer of the back of an adjacent chair, as he sits himself forward, clicking at the keyboard.

If he were to find a crack in Harklight's wall, he would have to know as much as he could, to find a starting point.

You had to know where the vein was, in order to draw blood.  
  
Some things, Inaho already knows from what little he'd been told from the soldiers that had recognized Harklight. Nowadays, as he continues his interviews with the Vers soldiers, questions about Troyard are now accompanied by questions about the solider who had stood the closest by him.

Troyard himself continued to remain much of a mystery, the soldiers not being able to answer more than what was already common knowledge. This had always been the case, and he learned little of significance.

The curiosity to Inaho, was that they had about the same, maybe even less, to offer about Harklight. He would have been their peer. More accessible, more on their level as they worked together, maybe even socialized.

Harklight, Inaho came to know, had been an appointed to Count Saazbaum's side prior to Troyard's launch to power. No one knew where he came from.

“Nothing special, probably. I never talked to him.” One had surmised. “Colony rat like the rest of us commoners. Probably just licked enough boots. Or, enough--”

He hadn't really needed that one to be finished.

After Saazbaum's death, he was rarely seen parted from Troyard's side, and if he was, he was either running some task or another under order, or seen beside the princess in his stead. In a way, that made sense, for Troyard had taken over Saazbaum's estate, and if he had been a loyal servant of the Count, then it only fit that he would follow through with his adopted son. And yet-

“You mean that Terran-fucker?” One prisoner had snorted at him.

An interesting comment.

Inaho reviews footage of the impostor Asseylum, his eye straining under the glare of the screen. He's both surprised, and not, when off to the side, a familiar figure is just barely captured within the frame.

Standing tall, in uniform, barely distinguishable from the surroundings, Harklight's face is carefully neutral, back straight and hands folded behind him.

“He...did his job.” Another former soldier had commented, and when Inaho prompted for more, she had simply shrugged and answered bitterly, “He was all over the place. I don't even know everything he was up to. If it was for Troyard, probably nothing good. After all, look where it landed us.”

Harklight didn't seem to have any friends among his comrades.

Since no one is around, Inaho lets loose an uninhibited yawn as he taps away, and stretches his legs out under the desk. Wondering, why Harklight seemed about as infamous as Troyard among their colleagues, and yet almost more of a mystery.

Then suddenly, it dawns on him. Harklight, ever cautious, would have trusted no one. And anyone he might have, would have aligned themselves similarly to himself, with the capricious presence of Troyard on the political canvas of Vers.

...And they were probably dead.

His hands pause, mid-air.

He sits alone with the drone of the machines of the room.

...He continues scouring the archives.

The more old transmissions Inaho reviews, it seems Harklight had appeared more often than not. Always off to the side, blending in with the surroundings. As distinguishable as the drapes, the wall, the furniture. A uniform used for decoration beside the fake princess, an ornament for Troyard's declarations.

Inaho taps a finger against his lip, thoughtfully, disbelief growing more with every click of the mouse.

“All over the place.” He mutters to himself, because that certainly seemed to be the truth of it.

How could it have been, that Harklight had never been noticed, until after the war was over and done? Fact is, he was never noticed on their side. His existence only came under their radar when their investigation of Troyard had expanded, and he'd come up immediately.

He wasn't a count, wasn't a politician. Yet, he had been a key figure in Troyard's operations, appeared alongside the false princess, even in the background of old surveillance photos with Count Saazbaum, indeed dating his military career back to at least a few years prior to the start of the war.

He had simply camouflaged in with the background, remained elusive enough to the spotlight. There is no intel on him at all, when Inaho scans even the most obscure corners of their databases.

How had he been _missed?_

He would have been an excessively attractive target. He was a verifiable goldmine of information. And even if he hadn't spoken, stayed as steadfastly loyal as he did even now...if he'd been killed, or captured...Inaho wonders how big the hole he would have left would have been.

 

–

 

“How are you?” Inaho asks as he resumes the same seat as the week before, the same seat he's sat in. Once or twice a week. For the past several weeks. Anywhere from a half hour, to an hour, at a time.

As usual, Harklight's glare is his only response.

_He wants to kill me._

_Pull, don't push_ , had been proving a little more difficult than he thought. His investigation had yielded little information and not much of a foothold to go off of. If anything, it had only left him with more questions.

 

Silently, he ponders. Drumming his fingers softly across the tabletop, Inaho regards Harklight with a bemused sort of curiosity. In return, he gets only a stone cold stare.

_He wants to kill me._

Who exactly was it, that sat before him?

An empty headed drone? A clever but indoctrinated cog in the Vers political machine? A simple boot licker who just wanted to climb the ranks?

...And do what?

Inaho didn't have these answers. But he was curious about them.

“Harklight.”

Nothing changes in his subject's face, and if Inaho wasn't assured Harklight's hearing was just fine, he would have wondered.

“...How long are you going to keep up this silence?”

“Until you leave me alone.”

He hadn't really expected an answer. It had been somewhat rhetorical.

“I'm not allowed to leave you alone. Unless you would be willing to cooperate with someone who wasn't me. I can arrange that.”

If he remained on this case, he'd pursue it to end. But he'd be happy enough to be free of the hassle altogether, as it were.

“People” had never been Inaho's gift.

“I won't say anything.” Harklight says solemnly enough for it to be an oath. Maybe it is. “To you, or anyone else.”

“Well, then.” Inaho responds blandly, “It seems we'll continue spending quite a bit of time together.”

Judging by the tightened muscles of his brow, Harklight isn't keen to that idea. Inaho watches the narrowing of his eyes, the tensing of his mouth, and imagines his teeth being tightly clenched together.

“Realize though, that the sooner you do cooperate, the sooner I can be out of your life.” Inaho stretches his arms out over his head, stares at the ceiling. It's as interesting as the floor.

“Define cooperate.”

“You're smart enough,” Inaho searches for cracks in the smoothed over concrete above him as he answers, “To know what kinds of things we might be interested in. Probably.”

A roughly fifty percent chance that Harklight will return his bait with some snide remark. The other fifty says he remains in stubborn, angry silence. It had been his pattern all this time, with little deviation.  
  
“And what is it, exactly, that you want to know?” Harklight asks coolly.

Inaho stops. Looks over at him.

“What information out of me does the UFE have such dire use for, now that they're victorious? Maybe I'm not as smart as you think I am.”

Slowly...Inaho lowers his arms. And he watches Harklight's face. Meanwhile the vent lets out a soft, brief, whirring. A pipe crackles innocuously from somewhere above them.

The walls are so bare, the room so empty, there's nothing to focus on besides each other. And the air slowly turns oppressive, charged, while they stare each other down across the table, pressing on all sides, on each exposed nerve it can find.

And as it happens, Inaho's begin to stir and wind taut, when Harklight leans forward, folds his hands on table. His face is as stern as ever. All hard lines. Tight mouth, narrowed eyes. But there's a unsettling coldness to his tone when he mutters:

“I'd be very interested in hearing your questions. Your. Real. Questions.”

Inaho hesitates.

“...And does that mean you will answer them?”

“We'll have to see about that.” Harklight's mouth curves into a smile that hardly seems genuine, and Inaho has the vague feeling that he's being mocked.

“Will you work with me?”

“I have nothing to offer you.” Harklight replies. “Perhaps I'm simply as tired of your banal questions as you are asking them. After all, who cares how long I have been in anyone's service?”

Inaho's finger taps the table, as their stare down continues.

Harklight's wording was, probably, very carefully chosen.

I have nothing to offer you.

There's a suggestiveness to the way he says that. There's something funny about the way he's waiting expectantly. Watching Inaho so carefully, with the same level of observation Inaho has been giving him, for perhaps, very different reasons.

Was it an implication that if Inaho laid his cards on the table, Harklight would, as well?

_What information out of me does the UFE have such dire use for?_

“Offer me?” Inaho repeats the words back slowly. “You have plenty to offer me. Otherwise, neither of us would be sitting here.”

“Of course.”

He hesitates again. Something about this makes Inaho uneasy. Gently, his fingers curl around his pen. There's the tiniest flicker in Harklight's eye. The gesture hasn't been missed, even if he is still intensely studying Inaho's face.

It's almost familiar.

_I'd be very interested in hearing your questions._

The questions Inaho asked, would surely be formed around what the UFE desired to know. There would be a pattern as to what subjects were pursued the most, a logic to the flow of questions that would probably be used to inform any next moves the UFE wanted to make.

He had been correct. The questions Inaho had been asking him were relevant, but not substantial. No one really did care how long Harklight himself had been in the military, or how old he was.

Was he gathering information?

But. Why initiate, when Inaho would have begun questioning without any prompt? All he would have to do is sit there, not say anything at all. He was smarter than that. Why would he so intently lead Inaho to figure this out?

...Unless he was purposefully baiting Inaho into this conclusion, just to throw him off? Buy himself time?

Maybe he really did want to know.

But, what would a man in prison for war crimes even do with such knowledge?

Was it amusement? Trying to push Inaho's buttons? Was it another power play?

...This was not the game of observation-analysis-conclusion he had committed himself to.

Inaho has no gift, no skill, in how to read the complexity of the game Harklight is pulling him into. Either Harklight has ascertained as much, and was toying with him; or he harbored an agenda of his own, and assumed he was playing with an opponent on equal footing.

Slowly, with consideration, Inaho perches his chin on the back of his fingers. He watches as Harklight's face slips back into expressionless disinterest. He sits back, likely waiting for Inaho's next move.

It's immensely hard to tell what the man is thinking.

But it's Inaho's job.

“Harklight,” Inaho keeps his eyes trained on the man's face, reminding himself he can't even be certain if he has the right person to begin with. “Is that really your name?”

“It's what you've been calling me.”

“Is it a code name?”

“Do Versian soldiers have code names?”

“...Do they?” Harklight asks lightly, as though he were entertaining a child.

Inaho frowns, ever so slightly.

“I didn't think they did.”

“Hmm.”

Harklight smiles, ever so slightly.

_He's messing with me._

In one move, Harklight had done several things.

He'd engaged Inaho on his own, took the conversation into his hands. He let it be known that he would be paying attention to Inaho's questions as much as his own answers would be analyzed, and forced Inaho to acknowledge it, even if only to himself. He'd called into question his own passiveness, taken ownership of his role.

Harklight wasn't digging his heels in this time. He was kicking sand in Inaho's face.

...He'd taken control of the situation, and Inaho didn't know how to fight back.

The chair whines softly as Inaho leans forward, settles his elbows on the table. Arms crossed.

Their gazes remain steadfastly, if warily, locked.

Inaho puts faith in the blankness of his face, the illegibility that he'd always been told was there. Staring back at him is an expression not so different, even though the tension in Harklight's dark eyes prickle the back of his neck in a way that's becoming familiar.

At least, now this would be _interesting._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *distant flailing*  
> I didn't mean for the next chapter to take so long ( ꒪Д꒪)ノ  
> I guess it doesn't really matter anymore, though

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Update coming soon!!


End file.
